Credit scores and credit is pretty black and white. The trickiest part is when you have no credit or youre starting to build credit. In those cases, you have have limited history to draw from, everything will be scrutinized from pull requests, new accounts, utilization. FWIW there are tricks to build up your credit line, like AMEX had a 3x cli within 90 days as long as you didnt raise red flags.

For credit cards, auto loans, or mortgages a bulk of the evaluation is formulaic. Even then you can recon or ask a human for a manual review and explain your case if its at the margins so to speak.

They tend to look at the same bottom line number because it's efficient. The whole FICO thing is the attempt to measure credit worthiness, which aims to answer the question, "If I loan them money, will they pay it back?"

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If I am loaning out $10,000, like for a car, I'm less concerned with their raw ability to pay and more concerned with their willingness to pay. If I am loaning out $500,000 for a primary residence, I am going to scrutinize their ability to pay way more than their willingness to pay.

I think very few people simply say, "I can pay this, but I'm not going do it." The thing that is more often seen when someone isn't paying is "I can't pay all my obligations, so which one am I going to skip?"

So I'm extremely doubtful that "willingness to pay" is actually a meaningful factor in the sense that it varies significantly from person to person. I could be wrong, but nothing I've ever read would indicate that.

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Not that these sorts of things always follow logic, but I'm saying that I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't boil down to a single number.

You might be surprised, then. It may not "completely" boil down to a single number, but credit scores are important because they're more consistent, more reliable, and much cheaper than human analysis. And there are different types of FICO scores that are geared towards modeling different types of loans. You would have to be right on the border before someone would manually look at it.

Credit scores and credit is pretty black and white. The trickiest part is when you have no credit or youre starting to build credit. In those cases, you have have limited history to draw from, everything will be scrutinized from pull requests, new accounts, utilization. FWIW there are tricks to build up your credit line, like AMEX had a 3x cli within 90 days as long as you didnt raise red flags.

For credit cards, auto loans, or mortgages a bulk of the evaluation is formulaic. Even then you can recon or ask a human for a manual review and explain your case if its at the margins so to speak.

You guys realize that every company gives you a different score, right?

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Originally Posted by Aaron W.

They tend to look at the same bottom line number because it's efficient. The whole FICO thing is the attempt to measure credit worthiness, which aims to answer the question, "If I loan them money, will they pay it back?"

I think very few people simply say, "I can pay this, but I'm not going do it." The thing that is more often seen when someone isn't paying is "I can't pay all my obligations, so which one am I going to skip?"

So I'm extremely doubtful that "willingness to pay" is actually a meaningful factor in the sense that it varies significantly from person to person. I could be wrong, but nothing I've ever read would indicate that.

You might be surprised, then. It may not "completely" boil down to a single number, but credit scores are important because they're more consistent, more reliable, and much cheaper than human analysis. And there are different types of FICO scores that are geared towards modeling different types of loans. You would have to be right on the border before someone would manually look at it.

You guys realize that every company gives you a different score, right?

Yes. But no, that's not what you think it is.

There is only one FICO that gives scores. The individual credit scoring bureaus give scores, but as far as I know those products are not actually used by the lending industry. They're just consumer products to drive extra business.

Edit: To elaborate a bit, something like 90% of the lending industry pulls FICO scores for making their decisions. There are other products like VantageScore that are out there, but are still not broadly accepted. They're just other companies trying to get into the game. I think there are some new shifts happening in the post-recession world (trying to capture data that isn't traditionally captured and part of a slightly different model of employment/debt), but the core is still coming down to what FICO says and not what these other products say.

FICO is the only thing you should really care about. There are other gimmicky scores, but I don't want to digress into that. Equifax, Transunion, and Experian should have very very similar history data on you. This includes which credit cards were open, when, when you were delinquent, what loans you have outstanding, when cards were closed, what collections are against you.

One difference is when a credit card agency or bank makes a hard pull, they will pull against one of the three agencies, the other two probably won't have visibility into that. They will have visibility when your new account opens.

Another variance is when your data is reported to each agency. If I charge $500 on a card today and the statement cuts, it varies when each gets it by days or weeks. This is pretty insignificant though and should not move the needle.

CreditKarma, and most credit card companies will give you visibility into your FAKO score which is close enough to the real thing. If you haven't already, you really should sign up for CK or at the very least pull your history off FreeAnnualCreditReport which let's you pull information from all three institutions once a year.

I haven't ever frozen my credit and probably never will unless someone tries to steal my identity. For the most part CK and other lenders will notify you if you have a new hard pull so that's good enough.

There are other gimmicky scores, but I don't want to digress into that.

You don't have to, you've proved my point nicely. The whole point is that it's not just one number. In the end it might be a number, but what number it is requires judgement.

Have you ever heard the joke about the superstar surgeon who gets called in, draws an X on the patient, and then begins to leave? The junior surgeons complain about how he gets paid $1,000 to draw an X. The superstar surgeon corrects them, "I get paid $1 to draw an X, and $999 to know where to draw it."

something like 90% of the lending industry pulls FICO scores for making their decisions.

While this may be true, this points the opposite direction of what you've been arguing.

I argue that insider knowledge such as this - rather than a priori knowledge or public information - is exactly why you should put way more trust in connections than you apparently do.

I don't have the means to evaluate whether it's true that 90% of lenders only pull the FICO. Neither do you. It could be true. It could be false. But you rely on insiders for that information. You also rely on insider information on whether the specific company you are engaging with is part of that 90%.

While this may be true, this points the opposite direction of what you've been arguing.

I argue that insider knowledge such as this - rather than a priori knowledge or public information - is exactly why you should put way more trust in connections than you apparently do.

This isn't insider information. I don't work in the business. I've just paid more attention to these things over the years because of an identity theft issue 7-8 years ago. I can probably cite several sources really easily, just as I did when I was talking about how credit scores are calculated. Unawareness or ignorance of information does not make it insider.

And no, I shouldn't put way more trust in connections. Again, just because someone works in "financial services" does not mean that they are particularly trained in the the specific behaviors and indicators of credit worthiness. I've already outlined for you a couple ways in which I *would* put more credence into that type of advice, but that has more to do with someone doing an analysis and not because of their specific employment.

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I don't have the means to evaluate whether it's true that 90% of lenders only pull the FICO. Neither do you. It could be true. It could be false. But you rely on insiders for that information. You also rely on insider information on whether the specific company you are engaging with is part of that 90%.

Meh. If this is your argument, then it's extremely strained and borderline conspiratorial. If you wanted to know which FICO score is being used when you're applying for a loan, you can ask them directly.

FICO is the only thing you should really care about. There are other gimmicky scores, but I don't want to digress into that. Equifax, Transunion, and Experian should have very very similar history data on you. This includes which credit cards were open, when, when you were delinquent, what loans you have outstanding, when cards were closed, what collections are against you.

One difference is when a credit card agency or bank makes a hard pull, they will pull against one of the three agencies, the other two probably won't have visibility into that. They will have visibility when your new account opens.

Another variance is when your data is reported to each agency. If I charge $500 on a card today and the statement cuts, it varies when each gets it by days or weeks. This is pretty insignificant though and should not move the needle.

CreditKarma, and most credit card companies will give you visibility into your FAKO score which is close enough to the real thing. If you haven't already, you really should sign up for CK or at the very least pull your history off FreeAnnualCreditReport which let's you pull information from all three institutions once a year.

As someone who used to pull credit and then send to banks while managing a car dealership, this is the most accurate post on the subject itt imo. By far. Not only that, but it was succinct and digestible.

At a busy store, it helped to profile when determining whose credit to pull before you have finance send the credit app to the lenders. Sometimes you got surprised and find out the middle aged guy in a golf shirt driving a '13 E Class is a credit criminal and the young guy driving the Honda crx w an aftermarket muffler is a 750. It was rare that profiling didn't save us a ton of time, by determining who we should deny the test drive and give numbers to, unless we ran credit first. Kinda like profiling in poker, I guess.

One of the few enjoyable things about the car biz was passing the time setting lines on likely credit criminals' scores and then betting over/under, w the winner getting to leave early for the day.

And congrats on that BBR entrance! I hope to join you someday - unless I become a credit criminal myself (score below that of avg NCAA FT%)

"In today's marketplace, 10 points can change your interest rate substantially," she said. "If you're a 710 instead of a 720, you could end up paying another $70 on your car loan every month."

The number drives much more than you think. You might be able to request an analysis, but unless there's something extremely odd about your circumstance, the number determines what's going to happen.

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Have you ever heard the joke about the superstar surgeon who gets called in, draws an X on the patient, and then begins to leave? The junior surgeons complain about how he gets paid $1,000 to draw an X. The superstar surgeon corrects them, "I get paid $1 to draw an X, and $999 to know where to draw it."

When I was in college, a broker told me "the first step to financial security is when you pay cash for cars." In a world of 0.9% auto debt, guessing that the rule isn't 100% today. Think leo doc put is more generally along the lines of "don't use credit to buy depreciating assets". Through that lens, knowing the exact details of credit checks seems odd (outside of people in the business). Along the lines of knowing the minimum payment on each credit card. I'll double down on the old broker's advice. The sooner you are in a position to be totally ignorant about auto loans, the better. My mid 90s Subaru Outback speaks to the practice.

Think the 2nd best advice along those lines would be to collect rental properties in down markets. Oddly, that would require good credit.

When I was in college, a broker told me "the first step to financial security is when you pay cash for cars." In a world of 0.9% auto debt, guessing that the rule isn't 100% today. Think leo doc put is more generally along the lines of "don't use credit to buy depreciating assets". Through that lens, knowing the exact details of credit checks seems odd (outside of people in the business). Along the lines of knowing the minimum payment on each credit card. I'll double down on the old broker's advice. The sooner you are in a position to be totally ignorant about auto loans, the better. My mid 90s Subaru Outback speaks to the practice.

Think the 2nd best advice along those lines would be to collect rental properties in down markets. Oddly, that would require good credit.

Getting out of paycheck-to-paycheck mode is the first step towards financial security, even if you have a car payment. Car payments aren't the worst thing in the world (though it's obviously better not to have one) and in some situations is close to necessary because you have to have reliable means to get to work. (The days of being able to save up a few hundred dollars to buy a clunker that you can limp to and from work are mostly gone.)

And getting out of paycheck-to-paycheck starts with focusing on saving up an emergency fund so that you don't go busto when something bad happens. There's a lot of stability/security that comes with knowing that you've got a cushion and it changes how you think about your financial decisions when you take that layer of stress out of the equation.

(I see no reason to buy the book. It's simplistic, but for people who aren't doing well, if you can get to the point that you're paying off credit cards in full and you're saving *something* consistently, you're most of the way there.)

Also...

Spoiler:

Jump to the 4:00 mark. All the other links to the skit seem to be blocked, but this one is buried inside of some random guy's seminar or something.

Getting out of paycheck-to-paycheck mode is the first step towards financial security, even if you have a car payment. Car payments aren't the worst thing in the world (though it's obviously better not to have one) and in some situations is close to necessary because you have to have reliable means to get to work. (The days of being able to save up a few hundred dollars to buy a clunker that you can limp to and from work are mostly gone.)

And getting out of paycheck-to-paycheck starts with focusing on saving up an emergency fund so that you don't go busto when something bad happens. There's a lot of stability/security that comes with knowing that you've got a cushion and it changes how you think about your financial decisions when you take that layer of stress out of the equation.

(I see no reason to buy the book. It's simplistic, but for people who aren't doing well, if you can get to the point that you're paying off credit cards in full and you're saving *something* consistently, you're most of the way there.)

Also...

Spoiler:

Jump to the 4:00 mark. All the other links to the skit seem to be blocked, but this one is buried inside of some random guy's seminar or something.

Thanks for this although I dont agree with that index card in regards to:

Disagreement #1
Dont buy individual securities ->
Shouldn't apply to anyone who is adequate to at least break even at LHE or better since Fundamentals and Technical analysis on securities aren't that difficult. Plenty of free DCF excel plugin or you can make VBA DCF if has the technical capability to which I imagine many in 2+2 does have.

Disagreement #2
Mutual Fund especially Target Date Funds are not that great in my opinion. Some mutual funds are great but depends what your firm offers you can use for Employee match. Other mutual funds > Target Date Funds in my biased opinion and short sample historical result personally

Skimmed so may have missed some on index card. Great video too which poker players can apply to since I wish I did when I was younger lol

Will add if you have a negative net worth you're better off paying that down ASAP. Debt can be due to student loans, credit cards, car loans. Mortgages are a little different since your property can appreciate in value. It's amazing how many personal_finance threads start with I'm $xx,000 in debt how do I get out. If you're knee deep in ****, most of the index card points won't apply or take less priority.

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Don't forget about traditional and Roth IRAs. Usually people match their 401k company match first, then IRAs, then contribute to the full 401k limit which is $18.5k.

I generally avoid buying stocks directly because I have no clue about TA. I wouldn't know good value from bad value, or when to sell vs holding. I would just be clicking buttons so to speak. If I wanted to gamble I'd rather due something else. My sense is there's also a lot of bad information out there. Think get rich quick schemes or unbeatable green light red light stock strategy. So Target Funds with low costs and vanilla strategies for bonds/domestic/international indexes/funds are good enough.

Disagreement #1
Dont buy individual securities ->
Shouldn't apply to anyone who is adequate to at least break even at LHE or better since Fundamentals and Technical analysis on securities aren't that difficult. Plenty of free DCF excel plugin or you can make VBA DCF if has the technical capability to which I imagine many in 2+2 does have.

But would you do better buying individual securities compared to buying passively managed index funds? Maybe, maybe not. But being automatically diversified seems like a pretty big win, and most people who are getting started in investing don't have the capital to buy up several different individual companies to get that diversification.

Will add if you have a negative net worth you're better off paying that down ASAP. Debt can be due to student loans, credit cards, car loans.

Yes to credit card debts, but...

Something like a student loan debt might be okay to carry around for a little while. If the interest rate is low (as it current is) and fixed (hopefully they are), racing to pay it off shouldn't be the priority. That's an okay debt to have follow you around for a little while. I'd actually prioritize the financial stability of a reasonable emergency fund before paying down the extra principal on that type of loan. (but if you have a private student loan with variable interest or a high interest rate, get rid of it ASAP.)

You should also look into income-based repayment plans to see if it makes sense for you to do that to adjust your payments (especially if you're still in paycheck-to-paycheck).

I feel similarly about delaying paying off car loans for a little bit. Having your car loan paid off sooner doesn't help if you suddenly have a $1000 car issue to deal with and can't afford it. Having that buffer is a pretty big deal.

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It's amazing how many personal_finance threads start with I'm $xx,000 in debt how do I get out. If you're knee deep in ****, most of the index card points won't apply or take less priority.

Aaron W. Points well taken. As long as your interest is fixed and low that makes sense. My loans were at 2 and 6 percent. Ive also carried balances at 0% promo rates.

When I got my first real job after college, it was hard balancing paying down debt vs saving for a while. Like I mainly paid off credit cards in full for new stuff, but didnt crack much on my loans aside from the minimum and didnt even hit my employers 401k match. Thats free money right there.

I thought it was pretty nuts when I read people should have a 6 month emergency fund in case stuff happens. I was paycheck to paycheck too. But now I realize stuff does happen. If you lose your job, car gets wrecked, family emergency, or just want to go somewhere, you need to be ready.

But would you do better buying individual securities compared to buying passively managed index funds? Maybe, maybe not. But being automatically diversified seems like a pretty big win, and most people who are getting started in investing don't have the capital to buy up several different individual companies to get that diversification.

Oh hell yes, if you're willing to do some work. And not just buying, but selling.

Aaron W we can agree to disagree on this. I think most poker players who can break even or better at LHE can invest in securities outside of index funds based on their work ethic to research and analyze as they have done in poker.